This past Sunday, I woke up at 4:45 a.m., made coffee, fixed myself breakfast, laced up my running shoes and stood in 40-degree weather and pouring rain with 650 others.

This is what insanity looks like. Of course, you have to be slightly insane to run a marathon. All of those miles logged, all of those hours spent toiling away — putting one foot in front of another. For what? For the glory of saying you’ve run 26.2 miles in one go? Maybe. I mean it is pretty damn impressive.

But for me, it was finally attaining a goal I’ve been holding onto for five years. A goal I’ve been dreaming of since I first moved to Massachusetts: qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

In the days and minutes leading up to the race, I was, naturally, full of nerves. This wasn’t my first marathon, but the stakes were much higher this go around than the last one. (I have a tendency to place a lot of pressure on myself and have been known to hold myself to pretty high — sometimes unrealistic — standards.) But to add to those nerves, I also didn’t give myself as much time to prepare for this race as I should have.

But as I stood there with the other runners, our breathes floating above us in a hazy cloud, I felt myself relax. And when the gun finally fired, my legs took over, my mind quieted, and I was flying.

I was cresting hills with ease. My stride was fluid and seamless. It felt so easy.

Then came the first water station.

For those that haven’t run a longer race and aren’t familiar with the act of simultaneously quenching a thirst while the lower half of your body continues to propel you through space and time…consider yourself lucky. And graceful.

Running a marathon is decidedly unsexy. Aside from trying to inhale a few sips of water while maintaining pace, you run the risk of choking on said water or missing the target of your mouth entirely.

Within the first couple of miles of the race, runners look like they’ve wet themselves. (And maybe they did a little, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of, right? … Right? … RIGHT?!) Or maybe you miss the oral target altogether, throwing orange gatorade right into your eye.

Aside from these perils, there’s the undeniable inevitability of going out to quickly at some point. Maybe not this race. And maybe not the next. But at some point, you will get antsy and kick it into high gear well before it’s time to do so.

For me, this moment set in around mile 18. The first 15 miles passed so quickly and so breezily I thought I would crush my time with a vengeance.

I imagined people bowing down at my accomplishments, kissing my blistered feet and praising my unbelievable finishing time. I would get rounds of applause as I sprinted through the finish line, with barely a drop of sweat, a smile gracing my lips and a glistening ponytail with as much bounce as my stride. Little kids would look up at their parents and say they too wanted to run a marathon some day, just like that pretty girl with the long legs and luscious hair.

Then, my legs started their protest.

Between mile 18 and 20, I imagined I was pushing through a wall. Or rather THE WALL. The one many embattled runners speak of when they share war stories from their time in the trenches.

At mile 20, I contemplated quitting. Not really contemplated so much as fantasized. I dreamt of lying on a bed with many pillows, a fluffy duvet enveloping my sore body, as I drank bottomless Bloody Marys and binge-watched all of my favorite shows.

By mile 21, I was somehow miraculously still moving along, if only barely faster than a crawl.

Miles 22 and 23 passed by in a pain-filled haze.

At mile 24, I stopped to accept my cup of water, hobbled along in pain, contemplated running off into the woods of Maine and never coming back.

I walked. Then walked some more. I started feeling a little sorry for myself. Then, the pity turned to anger. I used the anger to fuel myself to mile 25.

And then, I stopped again.

By this time, my legs had turned into sacks of rocks. With each step, I faced the horrible reality that I had to again lift a leg, put it in front of the other, and then somehow manage to do it all over again.

My legs started cramping in the face of this reality. Their protesting growing from a grumbling to a collective roar.

Then, another runner came along that reminded me why I signed up for this race to begin with.

As he saw me struggling to move, head hung low, wondering how in the world I would get to the finish line — he tapped me on my shoulder and said “Hey, come on. You can do this! Run with me! Stick with me.”

Never in any other length of race, from 5k to half marathon, have I found this miraculous and amazing camaraderie.

In both marathons, I have found encouragement from a stranger, a stranger who challenged me and carried me through my tougher moments.

These bonds are brief, but they are so strong and pure in the moment they exist.

This runner (who I later learned was named Michael) got me through that last mile of my race and pushed me through to a 16-minute personal record and a Boston Marathon qualifying time.

Running a marathon is hard. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional athlete or someone approaching with the mindset of just getting through the course, the time be damned. But there is something undeniably special about toeing the line with the hundreds (or thousands) of other individuals who happen to be just as insane as you are. And this insanity will (hopefully, should my final time be accepted) power me through Boston 2017.